The Scroll of Seduction by Gioconda Belli

Author:Gioconda Belli
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

MY SPIRITS COULD NOT HAVE BEEN LESS CONDUCIVE TO HEARING the news Philippe gave me. The moment I saw him, I noticed his shifty look and the stiff way he held himself. In just a few days, his face had grown sharper, more angular. After welcoming me and asking for us to be left alone, there was hardly any vestige of the tendernes he’d shown when bidding me farewell. Though I was sitting beside the fire, I felt cold. I sat listening to him beat around the bush for what seemed ages as he attempted to explain his decision to return to Flanders. And little by little, as his words dashed my hopes, I felt the fury within me take on the force of a whirlwind. When I spoke, the words shot out of my mouth like daggers. Spite ruled my speech. This was how he repaid my loyalty, he who felt so committed to his? Was I not the person who best knew what my body could or could not handle, how strong I was? Why this sudden concern for my health, when these considerations had not hampered our plans to leave until this point? If he thought my parents were so sensible, their reasoning so sound, why not wait himself until our child was born in Spain? There were only two months left. If we parted now, who knew when we would be reunited? Had I not been patient when month after month, for over a year, he put off our journey to Spain to be recognized by the Cortes? Why this sudden urgency that made him unconcerned about leaving me behind, far from him, from my children, and under my parents’ rule? Did he have no idea how much I missed my children? What if I died in childbirth?

I paced back and forth like a crazed pendulum, unable to calm myself or keep quiet. I went from questions he left unanswered to insults aimed at provoking any sort of reaction at all. I called him shiftless, weak, dim-witted, incapable of ruling a kingdom. What were his stupid Low Countries compared to the power of Spain? He was an arrogant fool, I spat. He was unable to put aside his pettiness to take the reins that destiny held out to him.

Speechless, Philippe stared at me from his seat beside the fire. His silence made me even more furious, enraged at my desperation and my impotence. I wanted to bang my head against the wall, to kick and scream, to destroy. I could not accept the idea of staying in Spain without Philippe by my side. And beneath my rage spread fear, like a lake whose waters were rising, threatening to drown me. I was sure that as soon as he left, my parents would take control, moving me this way and that like a pawn on a chessboard. I would have less freedom than the most wretched of my slaves. My eyes bulged in unbridled fear, and believing all was lost, I knelt before Philippe and clung to his legs, imploring.

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